For Cape Cod motorists and public works employees, the aftermath of this winter's weather will be felt long after the last snowflake falls.

The jolt of a tire sinking into a jagged pothole at 40 mph can chatter teeth, bend rims and shatter confidence in the typically smooth modern driving experience. For local and state highway departments, a particularly snowy winter — like the one that officially ended Thursday — means more work to fill potholes and smooth area roads.

"The freeze-thaw is what will create the potholes," said Mark Budnick, Orleans Highway Department superintendent.

The worst offenders are a mix of town, state and private roads well-known to drivers, including Mary Dunn Road in Barnstable, Kensington Drive in Sandwich and Davisville Road in East Falmouth.

The damage can be costly.

Andrew Chadwick, of Mashpee, bent two rims on his Nissan Maxima about a month ago when he hit a pothole on Route 28 in Cotuit on his way to work in Chatham.

"It had to be at least 6 inches deep," Chadwick said. "You shouldn't be bending your rims on public roads."

Jane Hurley, of West Yarmouth, popped a tire on Mary Dunn Road about three weeks ago.

She had to wait an hour on the fog-shrouded road for a tow, and when she approached the town about paying the $246 bill for the new tire and alignment, she was told that part of the road was private not public.

Will O'Doherty, of Pocasset, had to replace both CV joints on his Infiniti after commuting to work on Acapesket Road in East Falmouth for only six months.

"You can't have a cup of coffee in your cup holder or anything," he said about the road's condition.

His mechanic asked whether he had been off-roading, and O'Doherty knew the culprit was the potholes on Acapesket. Total cost: $4,300.

A pothole is caused by water seeping through cracks in the pavement. The water freezes and expands, hollowing out an area beneath the road. As vehicles travel over the cavity the roadway collapses, and voila, a pothole is born.

Although the exact amount of damage to Cape roads this winter is still being determined, highway officials say there are a lot more potholes than in previous years.

Budnick said his department responds immediately when alerted to a pothole and, like most departments, will apply a temporary patch until more permanent repairs can be made.

During the winter, hot-mix asphalt is not normally available because the plants that sell it shut down. Instead, a cold patch material is used that will then be replaced with the hot mix come warmer weather.

On Thursday, Barnstable town workers Ivan McKenzie and Scott Provencher cleared water and debris from potholes on Old Main Street in Hyannis before packing them with cold patch.

The men say they get about a half-dozen work orders a day for different roads in addition to spot calls.

"We do it until the weather changes," McKenzie said.

The work of filling potholes can be thankless.

"We have people who give us the thumbs-up, and we have the people who yell, 'Get off the road,'" McKenzie said.

Calls to the Barnstable Department of Public Works about potholes are up from 180 from Jan. 1 through March 20 last year to 220 for the same period this year, said Daniel Santos, the department's director.

The roughly 20 percent increase in calls mirrors a similar increase in materials costs for emergency road repairs, Santos said. This year the department is on track to spend between $70,000 and $75,000 for the repairs versus $64,000 for last year, he said.

"They took a beating this year," he said about the roads.

In addition to the weather itself, the plows needed to clear snow from area roads do their share of damage, Santos said.

Sandwich officials have spent $15,000 so far this year on cold-patch asphalt compared with an average of $2,000 during a typical winter, according to Department of Public Works Director Paul Tilton.

"We sent out crews approximately three days per week to repair potholes this winter," Tilton wrote in an email. "Labor costs to do this was about $25,000. We'll generally spend $5,000 on labor each winter."

Permanent repairs during the spring and summer will cost about $50,000 this year, which is about double the average year, he wrote.

An alternative to using cold-patch material is to use a piece of equipment some towns own called a hotbox, which can reheat leftover hot-mix asphalt and provide a more permanent repair, Budnick said.

"It's very useful because you do have a hot-mix patch that should last a lot longer and will more likely result in a permanent patch," he said.

The cost to fix a single pothole depends on a lot of factors, including its size and the preparation work before filling it, Budnick said.

The cold patch material costs about $70 per ton or more for higher quality material, Budnick said.

Unless somebody calls about a particular problem, Orleans sends two workers out at least one day every two weeks repairing potholes during the winter at a cost of about $700 to $800 each day for the labor alone, he said.

Falmouth has an infrared machine that heats a larger section of the road so a patch is more permanent, said Falmouth Highway Superintendent John Lyons.

"There are several methods depending on what's going on with each pothole," Lyons said.

But local public works officials said the real solution was more maintenance to avoid the cracking that leads to potholes in the first place.

In Falmouth, Davisville Road — which is in even worse shape that Acapesket — will receive a mill and overlay this year, Lyons said.

The top 2½ inches of the road will be milled and replaced with new asphalt, he said.

That project will be included in work covered by state Chapter 90 road project funding, Lyons said, adding that Acapesket is slated for the same treatment in the future.

Eastham Public Works Director Neil Andres said he is adopting a chip sealing program, which helps prevent cracks.

What's really needed is more transportation money from the state, he said.

Harwich is pretty supportive of its roads program, which involves an aggressive drainage program, Harwich Public Works Director Lincoln Hooper said.

The three principles of paving management are: "Where's the water going to go, where's the water going to go and where are you going to get the money," Hooper said.